commander.”
Longarm quickly unlocked the door and pulled it back. A trooper stood there in the hall. He looked agitated.
Longarm said, “What the hell is going on? What time is it?”
The trooper said, “Sir. The fort is under fire. We’re being sniped at. It’s twelve-fifteen or twelve-thirty. The captain said that we weren’t supposed to do anything, that I was supposed to come get you. He said it was a civilian matter. I’ve lost time trying to circle around the sniper. Yes, sir, it’s twelve-thirty.”
Longarm said, “All right, Sergeant. Calm down. You come on back in here with me while I get dressed and tell me what you know about it.”
They went back into the bedroom. Longarm got the rest of his clothes on and pulled on his boots and checked his derringer, revolver, and rifle while the sergeant told him of the events.
The sergeant said that since about eleven-fifteen or so, the compound had been under attack from rifle fire. There had been single shots, sometimes fired a minute apart, sometimes faster, sometimes slower.
Longarm said, “Anybody hurt? Anybody killed?”
Sergeant McClellan said, “Some of the boys have been hit by flying splinters of glass and pieces of roof when them big-ass shells came blasting through the barracks. Then Johnny Whitley was hit in the arm. The surgeon reckons it broke the bone. That’s a big shell! We figure there’s four or five horses dead. It ain’t been going on all that long. Like I say, it started, we reckon … well, it’s … it took me twenty minutes to get into town, so I guess we were under attack for about forty-five minutes before Captain Montrose sent me for you.”
Longarm said, “Can you tell where the fire is coming from?”
“Yes, sir, it’s coming off a butte a little to the north and west of the fort. Appears to be about a half a mile away. We can see the muzzle flashes.”
Longarm said, “Can you tell if it’s more than one shooter or not?”
The sergeant scratched his head under his garrison cap. He said, “Well, sir, that do be hard to say. He’s moving around. He ain’t staying in one position. Or they are moving around and ain’t staying in one position. But we never saw two muzzle flashes at one time, leastwise nobody thought to say anything about it if they did. I mean, well, I don’t know. We was just kind of figuring on it being one feller, but there could be two, I guess. I don’t know.”
Longarm said, “Well, Sergeant, we’re damn sure not gonna find out standing around here. You head on back to the fort and tell the captain that I’m on the job.”
The sergeant said, “Don’t you need me to show you where the shooter is?”
Longarm said dryly, “For some reason I think I’m going to be able to figure it out.”
He and the sergeant left together. Outside the hotel, Todd ran to fetch Longarm’s horse while the sergeant rode away.
When Todd brought his horse back, the young man looked anxious and excited. He said, “There’s trouble, ain’t there, Mr. Long? I mean, Marshal Long. You sure fooled me about that.”
“Yes, Todd, I know. Yes, there is trouble.”
“Who’s a-doin it?”
Longarm swung up into the saddle. He said, “I think I’m finally going to find out.”
He rode out of town northeast toward the fort. He had the feeling he sometimes got when he knew he was about to finally get to the nub of a matter. He felt like he was fixing to be able to scratch the itch that had been driving him crazy for more than a week. He rode swiftly as long as he was on the road, making good time for better than two miles. As the road swung east and toward the fort, he slowed the chestnut and started him into the thick brush and heavy going of the sand, rocks, and cactus. He pulled the horse down to a walk, but it was still hard on the animal. Occasionally he would stumble and Longarm would have to keep him afoot by the deft use of the reins. It was almost a moonless night. There was just the tiniest sliver of pale yellow in the eastern sky. High clouds in the dark sky overhead occasionally drifted past.
He picked his way carefully, heading in the general direction of the fort. He was not definitely certain where he was going but he had a fair idea. After about thirty minutes of careful traveling, he passed Clell Martin’s shack to his right. Not long after that, he began to hear the sound of a distant rifle. It sounded like thunder from way across the valley. There was an echo to it.
He finally hit a cleared space and was able to urge his horse to greater speed. He had left the road because he had a fair idea where the rifleman was firing from and he wanted to be able to come up on him from the rear. He went on for approximately another half mile and then dismounted, taking his rifle from the saddle boot.
He paused a moment to make sure he had extra shells in his shirt pocket that would fit both his rifle and his .44 revolver. He felt inside his belt buckle to make sure the derringer hadn’t slipped out in the rough ride.
He tied the chestnut to a mesquite tree and started forward, having rough going in his high-heel boots through the sand and the rocks. Now, of course, the firing was much nearer. He could see the butte where he knew it was coming from outlined in front of him in the dim sky. It was not particularly high, perhaps two hundred feet, but it was broad and squat. It was going to be easy to climb—easy, that is, if he didn’t have to do it under fire.
He considered taking off his boots to make the climbing easier, but he knew his stocking feet couldn’t take it for five minutes over the rough terrain. He took his hat off and laid it carefully on a rock so he’d be sure and find it on his way back to his horse. That hat had cost quite a bit of money and he had no intention of losing it in the apprehension of a crazy man.
He slowly started climbing. In the light and with the proper shoes and without being encumbered by the rifle, it would have been easy going, even if there had been a killer at the top. But under the conditions, he made slow progress. He counted five shots fired by the time he managed to make it within ten yards of the flat top that was littered with boulders. He knew that somewhere on that flat top of the butte, behind one of those boulders, crouched a man with a long-range, heavy-caliber rifle who was carrying out an insane plan.
The question in his mind was how much leeway should you give a man like that. Do you ask a crazy man
